The ban on extreme shifts in Major League Baseball was intended to create more action and offense in the game.
Three weeks into the season, it also has lifted a mental burden from those it affected most — including Anthony Rizzo.
The veteran Yankees first baseman is off to a strong start, in part because of a handful of hits that wouldn’t have been hits last season, but also because of the liberating feeling of not seeing an extra fielder in shallow right field every time he comes to the plate.
“Hell yes,” Rizzo said Wednesday. “It’s refreshing. You’re not going to feel good every at-bat, but you can compete now. Say you hit a ball hard in that direction, it has to be at the guy now. You can be rewarded for having a good at-bat. You may be smoking the ball in the hole and it being a hit now, as opposed to having a good at-bat, smoking it in the hole and getting patted on the ass [from someone] saying, ‘Nice swing, stay right there.’”
The left-handed hitting Rizzo saw the third-most shifts of any Yankee last season — on 82.6 percent of his plate appearances, trailing only Aaron Hicks when he was batting lefty (92.6) and Matt Carpenter (89.5).
Now, because of the new MLB rules, teams must have two infielders on the dirt on each side of second base and three outfielders. Opponents still can shade Rizzo to pull, but not to the extreme they had been able to in recent years.
Rizzo has taken full advantage. After going 3-for-3 with two walks in Thursday’s rubber-game win over the Angels, he is batting .344 with four home runs and a 1.027 OPS. Of his 22 hits, at least five of them likely would have been hit right into the shift last season and gone for outs instead.
“I think he has benefitted from that,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I can think of probably three hits or so, maybe three or four, that probably aren’t hits last year. So there’s that. And then, what’s the unintended effect of that? What’s the effect of a guy rolling one through that you don’t really hit that hard in your first at-bat? Is there an effect of that to kind of settle you, like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of nice.’ Probably some, but impossible to measure.”
A quick rundown of Rizzo’s five hits this season that likely wouldn’t have been last season:
April 2, vs. Giants RHP Ross Stripling: Rizzo hits a liner up the middle that shortstop Brandon Crawford dives to stop, but Crawford isn’t able to get up and throw. Last year, Crawford likely would have been set up behind second base and wouldn’t have needed a dive to get there.
April 5, vs. Phillies RHP Aaron Nola: Rizzo loops a soft line drive that lands a few feet onto the right-field grass. Last year? That’s an easy play for the infielder stationed in shallow right field.
April 10, vs. Guardians RHP Shane Bieber: This one’s a harder line drive to shallow right field, one that an infielder positioned there might have caught on the fly.
April 13, vs. Twins RHP Joe Ryan: Rizzo spikes a ground ball that heads in between the first and second basemen. In this case, first baseman Donovan Solano has to make a run at it because the second baseman isn’t in right field, and it deflects off Solano’s glove for a single.
April 14, vs. Twins RHP Louie Varland: Another ground ball that gets through the middle-right side of the infield where someone almost certainly would have been set up last year.
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“I’ve had a few this year where it was like a little dribbler up the middle and it was like, ‘That’s a hit now,’” Rizzo said. “It just helps, when you’re not feeling mechanically right in the box, which is more times than not. To be able to just be in there and compete and get a result, it helps you just relax. It goes [a long way].”
Having the right side of the field more open has not led Rizzo to get pull-happy and completely abandon going the other way. Six of his hits this season have gone to left field.
But he can now hit a ball on the screws to right field for a hit instead of lining it directly at somebody in the shift, which was “demoralizing,” he said. But the dribblers that now get through? He’s not complaining about those newfound hits, either.
“People say, ‘Just hit the ball the other way,’ and I’m like, ‘I wish I could, on the ground,’” Rizzo said. “The goal was to hit the ball as hard as you can every time. But it’s always nice to get base hits. It’s what we get paid to do. It opens up a side, especially for lefties, that hasn’t been there for years.”
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Up and away
Anthony Volpe appears to be coming into his own over the past week at the plate, and on Wednesday had what Boone called his best all-around game as a Yankee.
The rookie shortstop, who has been bumped up to the leadoff spot with DJ LeMahieu moving to the middle of the lineup in Giancarlo Stanton’s injury-related absence, is batting 7-for-26 (.269) with a sparkling .441 on-base percentage over his past eight games.
That hot stretch included three games against the Twins, whose shortstop was once a top prospect that came into the big leagues with high expectations like Volpe.
“He’s a very impressive kid,” Carlos Correa said. “He’s very athletic. Really good defensively, so far that I’ve seen. The bat is coming along. He’s going to be a great, great player for years to come.”
A thin crop
Clarke Schmidt’s struggles through his first four starts of the season — an 8.79 ERA across 14 ⅓ innings — have fans calling for him to be taken out of the rotation.
But because of injuries to Luis Severino, Carlos Rodon and Frankie Montas, plus the handful of pitching prospects they traded away over the past two years, the Yankees aren’t exactly brimming with options to replace Schmidt.
The closest pitching prospect on the 40-man roster is Randy Vasquez, who currently owns an 8.62 ERA through four starts at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Two other arms on the 40-man are Deivi Garcia and Matt Krook, but both have been pitching in multiple-inning relief roles instead of starting.
Meanwhile, three young pitchers they traded away last summer are currently in major league rotations elsewhere. Ken Waldichuk and JP Sears, who were included in the package for Frankie Montas, are in the Athletics’ rotation. Waldichuk has a 7.65 ERA through four starts. Sears, the lefty, has a 4.60 ERA through three starts.
Hayden Wesneski, whom the Yankees traded to the Cubs for reliever Scott Effross (on the IL after undergoing Tommy John surgery), has a 6.23 ERA through three starts.
